best record of the year so far imo. So much more complete then The Doldrums which i found way too distant. Great cover of Bright Lit Blue Skies and Round and Round is the best summer song for the last 5 years? probably? in short, it deserves a 9

one of the most golden pop songs of the year. keep listening. it doesn;t have to click with everyone - but from the Billie Jean bassline onwards it's awesome - the way the chorus gets slightly changed, gets bigger.

His older stuff was too indistinct for me, though it had flashes of brilliance. Cleaning up the sound makes the pop stuff explode and throws the weird stuff into sharp relief, he doesn't sound like he's cleaning himself up as much making all of his characteristics deeper and more defined. Probably ATOY unless Tomboy is as stunning as I hope it's going to be.

alternated between thinking it was magical, and thinking they were a really awful roxy music, (mainly the former).
think this will be getting listened to a lot.
some american lo-fi bands have been boring me to tears recently, this has so much more personality.

I can't, and while that doesn't neccessarily make me want to spend £10 or so on the whole album (I probably will), it does make me understand why people like him; if nothing else he writes amazing songs, and there's nothing that esoteric or bewildering about it.

I can't figure out whether it's awful and I can tolerate it or if it's one of my favourite albums of recent times. Which can only be a good thing. Also I've listened to it about eleven times since purchasing yesterday so again it must have something going on.

...hearing his earlier songs once or twice and thinking, okay, I dunno, maybe I'll come back later.
Lots of people with good ears are backing this guy so I'm gonna go in and have a heavy listen, I'll report back.

and was really apprehensive to hear about a APHG album with 'proper production' but this record is really well done. They've kept a lot of the trademark oddness and added the same level of detail into the songs. Quite pleased that they didn't over do the 'R&R'/'Can't Feel My Eyes' thing and you've got the cleaned up psych of 'Bright Lit Blue Skies', the awesome 'Fright Night', the excellent post-punky 'Revolution's A Lie' and the batshit 'Butt House Blondies' in there. Catchy as hell.

...and had (shamefully, I suspect) never heard of Ariel Pink nor his backing band before. I didn't know what to make of it when I first heard it - there were catchy things going on there but it seemed very strange too. The only thing is, I've just found myself compelled to go back and listen to it until now it's on my iPod practically three times a day.

It's a wonderful, strange and vibrant little collection of songs that doesn't sound like anything I've quite heard before - I was surprised to hear him described as 'low-fi' as this is anything but (perhaps his other material is a lot different).

I love the throwaway pop style here - it's almost cheese rendered an art form and it's certainly a direction many more artists can (and should, in my opinion) take pop music in the next year.

'I Can't Hear My Eyes' is a total gem.

This album goes alongside Gayngs''Relayted' as one of the most intriguing albums of the year that I've heard and both of these albums are similar in that they utilise music which had been considered redundant shmaltzy nonsense.

it was alright. Don't get what's so special about it. Sounded like 80s pop songs with a vaguely 'interesting' aesthetic. I mean, thats fine. It was enjoyable. But like... as good as joanna newsom? Nope.

Maybe it was the venue full of too many annoying people with bowlcuts trying to push past (power went off at the original venue so the event was moved to a much smaller one and started later) and the sound wasn't too great due to the venue switch, but nothing really grabbed me.

I've been enjoying it a lot this week. Interesting production + great songs, (yet even though, I guess Ariel Pink really led the way, and I've got to massively admire him for that, i'm still not sure i'll return to it as much as less song-based stuff like Ferraro and Rangers)

SO much more together than the last couple of times I saw them. And they looked like they were really enjoying themselves too. I think being indulged by label money and pushed into a studio to sort themselves out has done them a lot of good.

I've listened and I'm all in on this.
It's mostly sounds I've been conditioned to dislike manipulated into something amazing. It's a new kind of radical, built out of the opposite of radical.
Everything else sounds a bit too obvious, like not being covered in a filthy sticky sugary varnish is suddenly a bad thing.